Security Service investigates threathening video by Islamic State Georgian supporters

The Georgian State Security Service has started to investigate a video uploaded on the internet in the name of Islamic State yesterday. The message contained threats to Georgia and its people. The State Security Service called on local media not to circulate the video citing national security reasons.  

A 12-minute video spoken in Georgian-language saw four armed men call on Muslims in Georgia to join the ‘caliphate’ and threaten ‘kafirs’ [non-Muslims] in Georgia by beheading.

The video had Russian subtitles and was accompanied with a logo of Islamic State's Russian-language propaganda channel Furat.

The video appeared on Furat’s social media accounts and on a Georgian-language website, which described itself as "Caliphate’s Georgian Information Channel.”

"The time for cutting off your heads will come very soon” was said by Georgian-speaking Islamic State supporters in the video.

One of the men who featured in the video was identified by Georgian media as local citizen Khvicha Gobadze, 22, from the Adjara region in western Georgia. His father Ilia Gobadze told reporters in Batumi, a port city in Adjara, after the video emerged that his son had gone to Turkey about two months ago.

Gobadze graduated from high school in his native Didi village in Adjara before continuing his studies at a madrasa (Islamic school) in Batumi. Later he went to Egypt where he learnt Arabic.

The three other men in the video were not identified but were also believed to be Georgian and from Ozurgeti municipality in the Guria region of western Georgia, where their families were resettled as eco-migrants from the Adjara region.

One of the men in the video, titled Message to the Georgian people, addressed those "who have played a big role against Islam be it in Iraq or Afghanistan” and said these people would be targeted.

The speaker added those who thought the ‘caliphate’ was far away were wrong and the ‘caliphate’ could reach Georgia.

As well as threatening to behead non-Islam believers in Georgia, one of the men in the video criticised Muslim clerics in Adjara and said they were "slaves of kafirs” (non-believers).